


A Taste of Salt

by bottle_of_smoke



Series: A Taste of Salt [1]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Adult Eddie Kaspbrak, Adult Richie Tozier, Adultery, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Blue Balls, Bottom Richie Tozier, Canon compliant-ish, Closeted Character, Explicit Sexual Content, Fix-It, Gay Richie Tozier, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Missing Scene, Overuse of italics, POV Richie Tozier, Period-Typical Homophobia, Repression, ambiguous eddie kaspbrak, dumb jokes, eddie kaspbrak performs his own prostate exams, f-slur (once), mentions of child abuse, mentions of teenage sexuality, teenagers kissing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-10-20
Packaged: 2020-12-24 22:13:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21106850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bottle_of_smoke/pseuds/bottle_of_smoke
Summary: Richie and Eddie get talking, and memories start to return.





	A Taste of Salt

**Author's Note:**

> So, full disclosure: I haven't published fic in ten years and this was like pulling teeth. Of all things I didn't expect it to be IT: Chapter Two that got me back on the horse, but there we have it. Even less expected was the source of inspiration. I was re-reading the book during my work break and knew that I was approaching, you know, *that* scene. The one everyone skips past after the first time they read it. I was ten when I first read that scene and it was like, WTF Steve? I felt the same about it on this occasion except this time I was like "surely there was another way of getting this point across?" And that was the plot bunny. The gangbang scene in IT was what got me out of fic retirement. WTF indeed. Anyway, I hope this version is more bearable. That's the reason for the fix it tag. 
> 
> In spite of my reservations about certain elements in the book it was super formative for me. As such, whereas I've stuck to movie canon as best I can there are certain elements that are lifted from the book. For example, I always thought it was a shame Eddie's innate sense of direction wasn't included in the films. That being said, the characterisation is very much film, so far as I've been successful. 
> 
> A few of the phrases in the sewer scenes have been lifted pretty much ad verbatim from the novel, the first and last lines for instance. Credit where credit's due, those are Steve's.
> 
> I'd apologise for the tonal dissonance here but the film's the exact damn same so I figure that's just canon compliance.
> 
> I've called this missing scene in the tags. It isn't. It's a whole chunk of time that doesn't exist in the film that I made up because I didn't want to do the mental gymnastics to make it fit it into the canon timeframe. I figured if Bill and Beverly have time to bone in the novel, then Richie and Eddie can get it in my fic. They deserve it.

_Eddie leads them through the darkened tunnels for an hour, perhaps an hour and a half, before admitting, in a tone more bewildered than frightened, that for the first time in his life he is lost. _

_There is hardly any light. What there is is greenish and reflects disorientingly off the water. Bill asks if anyone has a match. Richie lets go of Mike’s hand and touches his shirt pocket, knowing already that he will find it empty. He used his last roundabout the time they passed the bundle of bones and polished rags only he and Bill had recognised as a Derry Water uniform. People get lost in the sewers all the time, Bill’s dad had said. You didn’t need the clown to die down here._

_Bev says her lighter is all out. Her voice is small. Bill doesn’t even try his flashlight, which Richie knows was soaked back when they were still in the Lair. Suddenly he wants to vomit. He reaches out for Mike’s hand in the dark. It isn’t there. Grappling for a second in wild panic, he feels Mike’s slippery fingers grab his wrist. Jesus._

‘_I’m sorry guys. This has never happened before.’ _

_There’s an obvious joke here that Richie would usually find irresistible, but Eddie’s voice is so miserable, so plainly close to tears, he doesn’t even consider it. He thinks about how the water, which comes up to his armpits, must be that much higher on Eddie. Eddie, who loathes filth, and who hasn’t complained once even though he loves to complain. Eddie, who has led them bravely in the dark all this time, and is now apologising._

_Bill’s voice rises out of the shadows. ‘It’s alright Eh-Eh-Eddie. Just g-give yourself a suh-second. You just need a r-rest.’_

_By the silence that follows Richie knows that Eddie is as unconvinced by this explanation as he is. In all the years he has known him, Richie has never known Eddie’s innate sense of direction to fail. In previous summers, when they had been playing out in the woods all day, were sun-drained and loose-limbed and bone-tired, Eddie had always led them unerringly home. Something else is at work here that no amount of rest can cure._

_Perhaps it is the memory of those past sunlit summers that does it, or it is a trick of the weird sewer-light, but Richie thinks he can see the others. Mike first, still holding his hand in his firm farm-boy grip; then Ben, Beverly, and Stanley, the horrible wheel of black grooves encircling his face. Beyond Stanley is Bill, and last of all Eddie. Eddie looks as miserable as he had imagined, eyes very dark and shiny in his pale face. The water laps almost to his chin and he is struggling to keep his cast dry. Worse, his chest is starting to whistle. Richie remembers how he had tossed his fanny-pack away before they came down here, which means Eddie doesn’t have his inhaler. Then the vision fades. Darkness encloses them again, and the only thing he can see is the shadowy impression of Mike’s fist holding his own._

‘_Hey, guys, let’s get in a circle.’ _

_He doesn’t know why he says it. Then the others begin to move and he finds himself lined up on Eddie’s right-hand side. Without word he takes hold of Eddie’s cast and brings it up onto his shoulder. Eddie’s breathing eases a little. ‘Thanks,’ he whispers, in a tight little voice. ‘It was starting to hurt.’_

‘_That’s okay, Eds.’ It is a testament to Eddie’s misery that he doesn’t instantly chew Richie out for the hated diminutive. ‘Perhaps you can think better now?’_

_There’s a pause. Then, so quietly Richie doesn’t think the others can hear, he whispers, ‘I don’t think I can get us out of here, Rich.’_

_Richie reaches up with his spare hand and touches Eddie’s cold fingertips with his own. After a moment, they wriggle back in a tentative sort of way. A tenderness fills him that is so sweet it hurts. He is glad of the dark._

‘_So what do we do now?’ Stan’s voice comes in quavering echoes. He sounds farther away than he is. Than he should be. Fear cuts through Richie, dividing the sweetness in two. He feels Eddie’s hand clench down on his. He heard it too._

‘_I d-d-don’t nuh-nuh-know.’ Bill’s stutter is back in full force now, and although he is only on the other side of Eddie he sounds about half a mile away. _We’re falling apart_, Richie thinks in sudden despair. _We’re falling apart and we’re going to die down here. Like the floating kids. _Eddie’s small, cold body shakes violently against his. Richie grips him hard but it does no good, it’s like he’s slipping between his fingers. Eddie jerks, cracking his cast against the back of Richie’s skull. His glasses fly off and he lunges after them. He hears Eddie’s yelp of pain and fear as his broken arm collides with the slimy water. He sounds horribly far away. _

‘_What now, Bill?’ Richie half-screams into the dark. _

_But it is not Bill that answers. Pushing his glasses back onto his face, Richie sees a blurred figure stepping into the centre of the circle. The dingy half-light leaps from the disturbed water. Her face is all in shadow, so it is by the cast of her hands above the glowing spread of sewer-water that he recognises Beverly. They are like pale-green spiders._

‘_I have an idea.’_

***

For the umpteenth time that night a memory began to take form in Richie’s mind. Previous memories alighted like doves, others like a cat in the curtains. This one crept in like an insect. He knew by now that if he tried to grab a hold of it it’d retreat back into the shadows, so he let it creep, turning the match that had triggered the memory over in his fingers. Something to do with spiders, he thought. Pale-green spiders.

Nope, not happening. Richie struck the match and lit his cigarette, which had begun to turn damp on his lip. The evening was fresh and cool for summer, or perhaps he had forgotten what Maine summers felt like. It had been long enough. Behind some twilit trees he could see the edge of the rising moon. An unremitting percussion of night bugs struck the hanging lantern. He was a bit drunk and should by rights have been enjoying himself. Would have, were it not for the fact that he were in fucking Derry. In fucking Derry, and had had the day he’d just had. And now everyone wanted to talk about it. Fuck that.

He was wondering where he could find another drink without running into any of the others when he heard footsteps on the porch. He didn’t need to turn around to recognise the tread, which was oddly unchanged since childhood. The same childhood he hadn’t remembered until, like, five minutes ago. He felt his heart turn up a notch, and his gut responding with a little twist of mortification. _Chill the fuck out, Tozier, _sneered the voice of the chronic inner critic.

‘Jesus, Rich, who the fuck smokes any more?’ Eddie stepped around Richie’s smog. He was holding two glasses, and there was a surprisingly decent bottle of scotch tucked into his armpit. Richie’s evening began to look up.

‘Bev, thank Christ.’ Richie smoked infrequently these days, and he’d had to cadge the cigarette. Like school again. Some situations demanded hard tobacco, and _pedophagic murder-clown _was a situation.

Eddie passed him a filled glass then settled in next to him. He rested his elbow on the timber railing, very close to Richie’s. Richie squashed the urge to nudge it, to upset his drink. Given that he’d only remembered Eddie a few days ago it was funny how fast the urge to torment him at any opportunity had returned. Or touch him for any reason whatever, come to think of it. Or not think of it, if Richie knew what was good for him.

‘Wow, are you actually standing upwind of me?’ Richie said, attempting to diffuse the tension he was single-handedly creating.

Eddie sniffed prissily. ‘Passive smoking is a _thing_, you know. Excuse me if I don’t want fucking lung cancer.’

‘Fuck me, Eds.’ Richie grinned to see Eddie’s mouth narrow. ‘Knowing that I’m destined to die of lung-rot would actually be a relief right now. Anyway–.’ He clinked his glass against the one in Eddie’s hand. ‘What the fuck do you call that? Funny-looking kombucha.’

‘Medicine,’ replied Eddie, taking a long swig. ‘And no fucking gazebo either.’ He barked out a hard, strange laugh.

Richie hadn’t a clue what that was about. ‘The fuck, dude?’

‘Sorry. Do you keep getting, like, flashbacks? Or not flashbacks maybe, but things falling back into a place where you hadn’t realised there was a hole to start with?’ Eddie swirled his drink, dark eyes fixed on the miniature whirlpool it created.

‘Constantly. Before you got here I was turning something over, but I couldn’t get it. Something to do with spiders, I think.’ _And water,_ he remembered suddenly. _Beverly in the water. _

Eddie shivered. ‘I keep thinking of spiders too, but all I remember is Stan’s spiders, and I don’t think it’s that.’ Something in the memory made him frown. He leaned closer to Richie. Gratified, Richie leaned back, giving him a knock with his shoulder. Eddie rolled his eyes. ‘Asshole,’ he grumbled. But there was no heat in it, and he didn’t pull away. He never had.

Richie flicked the last of his cigarette into the bushes. ‘What a fucking mess,’ he said, billowing smoke. ‘I can’t believe I’m in this shithole again. We should’ve run that first night. Too late now, probably.’

‘I keep thinking that. Leaving Derry was the best thing I ever did. I don’t know why I came back.’ Eddie paused. The tight-mouthed, thoughtful, frowning expression he wore was achingly familiar. ‘Didn’t want everyone thinking I was a pussy, I guess.’

‘No one thinks you’re a pussy.’ Richie heard his own vehemence, and was surprised by it. They’d trodden this path before. But it was another thing he couldn’t place.

‘No, just stupid. Fuck, I’ve got a career, and a wife–.’

‘Yeah, and those things sound super great.’ Richie clapped his teeth together, too late. Eddie whirled round.

‘Excuse me? What the fuck’s that supposed to mean?’

_Shit shit shit._ ‘Oh, come on. You more or less said it yourself at the restaurant.’

‘Said what, exactly?’ Eddie’s nostrils flared. He had a bright, black-eyed look, like a small angry animal. Richie knew the look. Between the ages of twelve and fifteen he’d spent a lot of time trying to make Eddie do that look, because Eddie never had pigtails to pull.

‘That you’re basically miserable, I guess?’

‘I didn’t say I was miserable.’ The look may have been the same, but this was dangerous territory. Still, Richie felt a little thrill of pleasure.

‘Please. You’re a risk analyst who married his mother. Not exactly the dream, is it?’

If Eddie had been more like Bill maybe he’d have clocked Richie at this point. Instead he flared harder, somehow managing to compress his lips even more. _His hand’s going to come up any second now_, thought Richie. He felt transfixed. He couldn’t even feel guilty, he was enjoying himself so much.

‘I like my job,’ said Eddie after a while. His voice was fraught with poorly concealed rage. ‘I like my job, and Myra’s… Myra’s a nice woman.’

‘_Nice. _For fuck’s sake Eddie, listen to yourself.’

‘No, you listen to me.’ There went the hand, bisecting the air like he was cutting wood. ‘I like my job and I like my wife.’ _Chop chop. _‘No, my life isn’t perfect, it isn’t everything I wanted it to be, but here’s the fucking deal: _I couldn’t remember what I wanted it to be._’

Well. There was that.

Richie mulled over how he was going to apologise while they both finished their drinks. Just as he’d sort of worked it out Eddie’s phone rang. He didn’t ask who it was; it was as though he’d summoned her with an incantation. ‘I gotta take this,’ said Eddie, not even bothering to check the screen. Richie watched him go. He’d be lucky if he saw him again this evening.

Fucking things up, as always.

He could chew his heart out or he could do something useful. With uncharacteristic optimism he refilled both the glasses, then drew up a chair and pulled back the memory he’d been examining. Spiders, and Beverly in the water. The more he thought about it the less he thought there were spiders. _Spiderlike_ was the word that kept coming to mind. While trying to grasp the mood of the memory Eddie returned. Wordlessly picking up his drink, he deposited himself down in the chair across from Richie. He looked prickly as fuck.

‘That Myra?’ asked Richie, all innocence.

‘You know it was fucking Myra.’

‘How is the lovely Myra?’

‘A fucking delight. Bitches just love being abandoned for sudden emergencies involving friends you’ve never once mentioned in eleven years of marriage.’ He pinched the bridge of his nose, hard enough to turn the skin a dazzling white.

‘You shouldn’t call women bitches, Eddie. It’s misogynistic.’

Eddie rolled his eyes. ‘You’re fucking loving this, aren’t you?’

‘Kind of. Sorry.’

‘Ugh.’ Eddie scrubbed his hands up and down his face. ‘Oh, god, I’m never going to live this down. She’s never going to let me. My life isn’t going to be worth living. I hope this fucking thing _kills me._’

‘Dude.’ Richie grimaced. ‘Not cool. Don’t say things like that.’

‘I’m planning on taking you with me.’

‘Oh, well. That’s okay then. You, me and Stan make three.’ He took a big gulp of his drink.

The rigid edges of Eddie’s posture gentled. ‘I miss Stan.’

‘I miss Stan too.’

Somehow both glasses needed refilling again. Richie guessed it was the scotch that made his eyes water, and wiped them surreptitiously with his thumb. He saw Eddie do the same. The darkness had descended totally by now. The enormous moon, suspended above the trees like a fat bead of liquid metal, gave everything a pewter sheen.

‘Maybe we should go back indoors?’ Richie suggested, not really wanting it.

‘No, fuck that. I can’t. Not right now.’ Eddie was keyed up, bristling and anxious. From his call, probably, or perhaps from Richie giving him shit. Whatever. ‘Anyway you haven’t told me about _your _miserable life yet.’

‘I thought that was your area.’ Richie’s heart snapped like a jacked clock. Too much fucking liquor.

‘Please, you can’t bullshit me. I’ve seen your show.’

‘You know, I already admitted it wasn’t my own material. That’s someone else’s horrible life.’ Someone he’d forgotten how to play the instant he remembered Eddie’s existence_, _he didn’t add.

Eddie shook his head, and somehow managed to spill scotch down his pant leg. ‘Shit. No, wait, you don’t get away that easily. You made me admit to it, now it’s your turn.’

Richie didn’t care much for the spotlight being turned back on him, although it might kind of been his own fault. ‘I don’t think you actually admitted anything,’ he said.

Eddie scowled. ‘Yeah, well, I am. Miserable, I mean. Or – not happy, anyway. Least I’m not pretending any different. You seen the state of Bev’s arms? She didn’t get those bruises in Derry. Ben’s lonely as hell. And Bill – all that guilt and grief all these years without even knowing _why. _I mean, fuck.’

Richie _had_ noticed Bev’s arms, and other things too. The soft pale line on her ring finger, for one. Her brittleness, and way of jumping when a door opened suddenly, or one of the guys raised his voice. Back at school they’d smoked together behind the bleachers. They’d got to know each other in the way smoking buddies did, the way guy-girl friends did because girls would ask questions boys didn’t dare to. During these conversations and others he’d understood there was something up between Beverly and her dad, but he was adolescent and self-absorbed and dumb, and she was intensely private. That brittleness, the jumpiness, the secrecy, all had its roots in that time. The fact that it’d bedded down, had established itself, said to Richie that it had been nurtured. And those arms hadn’t bruised themselves.

Eddie was right about Ben, too. He might be insanely hot now but it hadn’t done anything for his social life. Loneliness recognises itself, and Richie had known Ben was lonely the instant they met. It came off him like a bad smell. And Bill. He’d read one of Bill’s novels during a long stopover once, although of course he’d not realised it at the time. The one with the eye. He remembered thinking that this guy had some fucking unresolved issues. Dead brother issues, it turned out. For the first time in twenty-five years Richie remembered Georgie Denbrough’s face. He’d not known him well, he’d been like seven years younger or something, but he was a nice kid. That had been a fucking awful time.

The others, too. Mike, half-mad with knowing, and Stan… well. Stan not being here.

‘What about me?’ he asked. The memories had become too sad. ‘Give it to me.’

‘Oh, come on.’ Eddie, Richie remembered better than most things, had been a nice kid too. Sure, he was shrill and enraged pretty much all of the time (which may or may not have had something to do with Richie himself), but he was also sweet and affectionate and he didn’t like hurting people. Richie remembered these things clearly because he’d liked them all very much. Right now, Eddie was trying to be that nice kid again. Whatever he had to say he was avoiding, because he didn’t want to hurt Richie. This hit Richie in a place he’d forgotten about, and was only beginning to become aware of again.

‘Come on, give it to me. I gave it to you.’

Eddie sighed. ‘You asked for it. Like I said, I’ve seen your show. Myra hates it, by the way. I think her exact words were “nasty man”. Myra doesn’t curse, so that’s pretty fucking strong coming from her.’

‘Oh man, I _knew _I recognised her picture! Tinder, am I right?’

‘Fantastic, we’ve graduated from mom-fucking jokes to wife-fucking ones. You’re so _funny _and _clever _Richie. Fucking el-oh-el.’

‘No one laughs-out-loud any more Eddie, get with it.’ But he was grinning. He’d missed Eddie tearing strips off him. Perhaps there was something a little sad, a little haunted, about the way they had all just slotted back into the roles they’d inhabited when they were thirteen, but Richie kind of loved it. His adolescence had been characterised by a lot of fear – hell, an abnormal amount of fear –, but he’d been very happy, also.

‘Anyway, I hated your show too,’ Eddie said, dismissing Richie’s show of being wounded with a wave of his glass. He’d committed to this path of emotional honesty now, and nothing would dissuade him from it. ‘Not just because it sucked – you need to fire your ghostwriter, man – but, like, I don’t know. You just didn’t seem like a real person.’

‘Dude.’ That hurt, actually.

‘Sorry.’ He was sorry too, teeth half-bared, grinning like a guilty dog. ‘But, like, it was obviously fake. Like you weren’t feeling any of it. Like there was a bit of you missing.’

Well. Richie had said to give it to him.

‘I mean, I think even if I’d recognised you, I don’t think I’d have _recognised _you.’

‘Yeah, that’s enough, Eddie.’

‘You want another drink?’

Richie nodded. He didn’t trust himself to speak just yet. Eddie leaned over to hand him the glass, and he felt him hesitate. Richie knew he was considering touching him; they’d been affectionate as children, and comfort was physical. But he pulled away. The huge, yawning, empty place inside of Richie (the place that apparently just anyone could see) ached with disappointment.

‘Are you okay?’ Eddie asked. He was actually squirming. Richie relished it, although he understood he had kind of cast the first stone there.

‘Fucking hunky-dory. I don’t really feel things, you know? Just a big fucking empty hole.’

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘Um, it sort of sounded like you did.’ Suddenly he was angry.

‘No, I did _not.’ _Eddie’s teeth shone white for a second. ‘I said that the character you were _playing,_ that your shitty ghostwriter _made up_, felt empty. I did not say that _you _were empty.’

Richie didn’t speak.

‘Jesus, Rich. You were like my best friend. Why the fuck would I think you were empty?’

The silence that followed was enormous, disturbed only by the sound of the moths dashing themselves to death on the lantern. Eddie’s knuckles had gone white around his glass; embarrassment, perhaps, or anger. He looked as though he were preparing to make a run for it. ‘Thanks,’ Richie bleated, before he could. ‘You were my best friend too.’

The edge of Eddie’s shoulders relaxed a little. He huffed a laugh. ‘You had a fucking funny way of showing it.’

‘Fucking funny’s right. I was and am fucking hilarious. I don’t need yours and nasty-man-Myra’s approval. I’m a free bitch, baby.’

Eddie smiled. Then he did something unexpected. First taking his shoes off, he lifted his legs up and crossed his ankles over Richie’s knees. Richie didn’t know what to do; then he did. Awkwardly (because he was forty and not a gymnast) he kicked off his sneakers, and did the same.

‘The hammock.’ Grinned Eddie. ‘It just came back to me.’

‘You were such a little bitch.’

But the memory was there for Richie too, slinking in like a cat. It settled in a sunbeam and glowed, warm and golden. Were things really that golden? It didn’t seem likely, yet the memory pulsed with light. Automatically, muscle memory returning first, he placed a hand on Eddie’s bare ankle.

Eddie’s ankle had been smooth to the touch, back then. Green-dappled sunlight, falling in through the trapdoor, had burnished the light hairs of his tanned leg a bright bronze. Eddie’s socks had smelt of washing powder (he’d the cleanest-smelling feet of any thirteen-year-old that ever existed) but there was a faint undercurrent beneath, a bland, pleasant, Frito sort of scent, like a dog’s paw. Giddy with his own daring, Richie had laid a thumb on the protruding knot of Eddie’s ankle bone. When Eddie didn’t respond, he’d gently stroked the soft, sun-warmed skin there.

Later this had become their regular hanging out position in the clubhouse. But it was that first time which had stuck with Richie. Back then, masturbation had still been something of a novelty, and that summer he’d pretty much degloved his dick thinking about Eddie’s socked foot cupped in his hand, and the way the hairs of his freckled shin caught the light.

The ankle in Richie’s hand now was thicker, hairier, and surprisingly well-muscled. A runner’s ankle. Of course, a man as preoccupied about his health as Eddie would have a gym membership. No, not a membership, he’d never bring himself to share equipment. A nice home gym then, which he could decontaminate at his leisure. Mustering all the daring he’d needed at thirteen, Richie smoothed his thumb over the round bone. He felt the tendons of Eddie’s foot flex beneath his hand.

‘I always thought it felt kind of nice when you did that.’

‘Hm,’ said Richie. He was focusing very hard on not springing a Pavlovian boner, and speaking would break his concentration. Pretty fucking awkward. Yet wild horses couldn’t have torn him away. That was some self-destructive bullshit. He shivered, sort of with fear, sort of with lust.

‘You cold? Guess you’re a Californian now. We can head indoors if you want.’ But Eddie’s tone was dubious. His toes wiggled in their nice clean socks.

‘Nah,’ said Richie. To his own ears he sounded a little breathless. He wished he had another cigarette. ‘They’re just going to make me talk about what happened today.’

‘What _did_ happen?’

‘I just said I didn’t feel like talking about it.’

‘Everybody else did.’ Eddie lifted his feet out of Richie’s lap. The funny line that would materialise in his forehead when something bothered him had appeared. Along with the other funny lines. _You’re so old, Eddie, _thought Richie, with hypocritical glee.

‘Was it that bad?’ asked Eddie, putting his shoes back on.

‘Well, it wasn’t fucking awesome.’ He felt cornered. ‘Just, you know. Pretty boring compared with you guys.’

‘I doubt that.’

‘You know. When you compare it. A leper didn’t throw up on me. I didn’t drink shit tea.’

‘Oh, god, that was so nasty.’ Eddie gagged. He still did the gagging thing. An enormous bubble of affection swelled up inside Richie’s chest. Then – shit tea. _Raw sewage. _Beverly in the sewer. Beverly, whose hands had looked like green spiders because it was the only part of her he could see. A shock of emotion washed over him, with a violence like cold water. He gasped aloud.

‘Are you okay?’ Eddie sounded concerned. ‘Should I get you something?’

‘No. No. I just remembered something.’ Fuck knew what ‘get something’ meant to Eddie Kaspbrak. Diazepam? Medical-grade heroin? No, Richie thought. He intended on dealing with his ‘Nam-style flashbacks like a man: by drowning them. He held out his glass. ‘Fill me up, Scottie.’

‘You sure you’ve not had enough?’

‘Booze me, and I’ll tell you what happened.’ He shook the glass. He was feeling suddenly very old, and very tired, and yes, a bit fucking bored, actually.

Eddie topped him up. After a moment’s consideration he refilled his own glass too. He put the empty bottle on the ground. Richie took a long look at him. He was struck by the sweetness of Eddie’s face, the grave, gentle eyes. _No time like the present, Tozier. You’ve had a nice thing going on here __this evening__. __High__ time you fucked it up._

‘It was just the clown. Over by the Paul Bunyan statue.’

‘You didn’t like clowns, did you?’

Richie rolled his eyes. ‘None of us like clowns, dipshit.’

Eddie shrugged, unbothered. Either he was too drunk to bite, or he thought Richie was on the verge of a breakdown and had chosen to be kind. _Watch this for a fucking breakdown, _thought Richie.

‘So yeah, he turned up in his clown form, called me a fag, then everyone turned around and looked at me.’

‘Uh,’ said Eddie.

In the silence that followed a memory swam to the surface. A few houses down from where Richie grew up there’d been two men living together. Their names were Jim and James. As a little kid Richie had found this very funny; he had thought they were brothers, and that their parents sucked at names. They had an amazing front yard where, instead of the status symbol lawn everybody else had, they grew a bunch of cool native plants. It had looked something like a miniaturised jungle, or a fun-sized Barrens. Stan loved it, because it attracted tons of birds.

Richie had adored his parents, and knew they were good people. Back in the day they’d been involved in the civil rights movement, in the adjacent sort of way young progressive white students sometimes were. To these men they were never anything but scrupulously pleasant. But there the memory became a squirming thing, something wet and amphibious. He’d been maybe nine or ten. It was the first Halloween he’d been allowed to go trick-or-treating without adult supervision. He was wearing an Iceman costume and all ready to go out when his parents had taken him aside. In voices that were almost whispers they had told him that, under no circumstances whatever, was he to approach the house of the two men.

He’d been outraged. In previous, parent-supervised years Jim and James had shown themselves to be a reliable source of a good haul. No Necco Wafers or grandma candy from those guys. But his parents wouldn’t budge, and when he asked why they wouldn’t give him an answer either. This was in itself unusual: his parents were pretty open about most things. Richie sensed there was something shameful in it.

Perhaps it was the ambiguity, perhaps he simply didn’t want to be the last kid left trick-or-treating with his mom, but Richie had done as he was told for once. Afterwards he’d avoided the two men. Sometimes he’d even hid, although he’d always got on well with them before. Later, when Jim and James had moved away and he’d begun to suspect they were something other than brothers, he wondered what his mom and dad would think of _him _if they knew. Would they think that he was somehow fundamentally dangerous, also?

‘I think he chased me about a bit too,’ said Richie. The silence had become too big, the memories that filled it too painful.

‘Oh. Well, that’s always bad.’

‘Pretty lame, huh?’

Richie felt stupid. Worse, he felt juvenile. It _was _lame. Living where he did now, working in the industry he did, it wasn’t like he didn’t know plenty of people like – that. Like him. People who had found a way to live well. But somehow the habit of secrecy had become ingrained, like dirt, and nothing could shift it.

He’d not hidden it exactly, at least not from himself. In college he’d slept with a few girls. It had been fine, or at least not actively unpleasant. But something was missing. Everyone used college to experiment and Richie had experimented with heterosexuality. Once he graduated he stopped. He didn’t see the point. Later, when he became successful, he found he could get what he liked without too much effort; moreover, he could do so discretely. He convinced himself it was enough.

And that had been fine too, in his twenties. Then, as he’d bedded down into middle-age, he found it harder to be convinced. His apartment, which was smaller than it had to be, began to feel overlarge. His friends were getting married, having kids, and he was conscious of his own loneliness. He began to think it might be nice to have someone to talk with in the evenings over takeout, or to watch Netflix on the couch with. To run baths for, and wake up next to. To have a family with. But the habit of fear was fixed.

He’d assumed it was a sort of intrinsic cowardice that prevented him acting on what he wanted, but perhaps that reflexive self-loathing wasn’t helpful here. After all, both Eddie and Beverly had remained in the thrall of their childhood trauma too (had married it, even) and there was nothing gutless about either of them. The others too, except maybe for Mike, their lighthouse keeper. And Stan. Stan seemed the only one of them who had entered adulthood properly, and not the deformed middle-state the rest of them inhabited. Perhaps he was the only one of them who’d had a truly adult response to Mike’s phone call as well. The rest of them – well, how do you learn from a childhood you don’t even remember?

Something about this place had made them like this. Derry itself, casting its long shadow across their lives. They’d all been successful in their individual ways but were nevertheless stunted, picking the scabs off past wounds so that they couldn’t heal.

Eddie still hadn’t said anything. Richie, unable to move beyond his fear, felt like throwing up. Then Eddie opened his mouth to speak, and he_really_ wanted to throw up.

‘Like. I think the other thing is bad too.’ Eddie’s gaze was fixed somewhere above Richie’s shoulder. ‘The not-chasing part, I mean. I think I understand why you didn’t feel like discussing it with the whole group.’

Richie swallowed; his throat clicked loudly in the night air. Eddie met his eyes.

‘I’m glad you told me. Thank you for trusting me.’

‘You were always my favourite, Eds,’ Richie rasped out.

‘Thank you. But you still can’t call me that.’

The silence that spread before them now was pliant and companionable. Eddie’s eyelids slid to half-mast. Sleepiness softened him, made him look like the child Richie had once known. Richie wished he’d put his feet back into his lap. He could fall asleep that way, if he liked, with Richie touching his calves. That would be nice. But if he asked then it would be weird, and if anyone was going to make this evening weirder than it had already been it would have to be Eddie himself.

Eddie’s cell phone rang. ‘Oh, fuck you!’ he snapped, instantly awake. He stared at the screen, then tapped the hang-up symbol.

‘Whoa, Eddie.’

‘Whoa yourself.’ He twisted his wedding ring. ‘She’s just going to call me again. I’m switching it off.’

‘You trying to make trouble for yourself?’

‘Whatever. You’re not the only one who needs to rethink some life choices.’

‘Meaning?’ Richie’s blood drummed in his ears.

‘Meaning that – you know, it only occurred to me this evening that the only people who ever said they loved me were trying to manipulate me.’

‘Everyone here loves you, Eddie.’ It wasn’t the thing Richie wanted to say, but it was the closest he could say to it.

‘I know. And I didn’t remember. I’d forgotten what that felt like, to be loved by people who didn’t expect something back from it. I forgot how much I hated my mom,’ Eddie threw back the rest of his drink. ‘And how shitty that makes me feel.’

‘Your mom was a hot mess, Eddie. You’d every right to fucking hate her.’ _I did, _he didn’t say.

‘She loved me though. I mean, she was like she was for a reason. First she lost my dad, then I got that bronchitis when I was six and nearly died. Maybe she was messed up but she had a reason to be. She only wanted to protect me.’

‘Jesus, Eddie. Fine. She had reasons. Doesn’t change the fact she tried to isolate you and make you her possession. That she used your love for her against you. That she hurt you. No, _listen_, she did. There’s no excuse for doing that to a kid. You deserved to be loved for exactly what you were.’ Richie swallowed, hard. ‘You still do.’

‘Do I, though?’ Eddie opened his arms in a despairing gesture. ‘Maybe I got what I earned?’

Richie screamed into his hands. ‘Oh my fucking god you cannot be this fucking stupid? Like, what is this self-pitying bullshit? Who the fuck do you think you are? _Me_? Fuck you!’

Eddie didn’t speak. He was watching Richie the way an old dog watches a toddler that had just grown bored of its toys.

‘When I said earlier that you were my best friend? What did you think I meant by that? Did you think I meant you were the best of a bunch of freaks and weirdos I knew in middle school? A bunch of freaks who, by the way, happen to be the best people ever and who also think _you_ are absolutely fucking wonderful? No. I meant you were my favourite person _ever._ You were my favourite person ever when I _couldn’t remember you existed, _you’re my favourite person _now_. _That _was the gaping fucking emptiness you saw, like, fucking amplified on TV. It was _you not being there. _I missed you most of my entire life and _I didn’t know I was missing you_. You wanna play pathetic, you _cannot _beat Richard fucking Tozier.’

They stared at one another over a vast distance of two yards, motionless but for Eddie’s frantic twisting of his wedding band. Even the moths had ceased their kamikaze missions on the hanging lantern. Richie wished, with the desperation of mortification, that Eddie would say something. Anything.

‘I think we need more drink,’ said Eddie.

‘Jesus, yes. Why am I not half-cut yet? This healthy northern air is fucking poison.’

Eddie made to get to his feet, then paused. ‘You know, I missed you too,’ he said. ‘When you left.’

Richie’s blood turned to slush. ‘I left first, didn’t I?’ He asked, although he knew. Eddie nodded.

They were fifteen. Beverly, Ben and Bill had already gone. Stan was around, but had moved to a different part of town, a different school. Mike was helping more on his family’s farm. Five days a week Richie and Eddie had only each other.

‘You said you’d call every day. I used to wait at the phone booth after school because my mom would listen in when I used the landline.’

Richie’s sister had a baby. His parents wanted to be closer to her. Richie had wept genuine tears, but it made no difference. They’d had only each other, then Eddie had nobody.

‘I forgot.’

It had happened so quickly. There’d been maybe seven or eight phone calls in total. He couldn’t remember what they talked about, trying to remember was like trying to grasp wet soap. But he recalled that something in Eddie’s voice had worried him. Something he’d said about his mom. Richie wanted to go back. Had worked out how to get back. The next day he’d picked up the telephone to tell Eddie about his plan, and stopped. He couldn’t remember who it was he was going to call.

‘I know, Rich. We all did, except Mike. But I still kind of feel mad about it too. And, like, hurt. Really fucking hurt.’

Richie understood. Since arriving in Derry he’d felt as though he were stepping through time. Like someone had wrapped him in the ghost of his adolescent self. Sometimes he felt as though he were looking through that other Richie’s eyes. Sometimes there was a sensation of paired hearts beating together.

‘I’m so sorry, Eddie. If I’d known I never would have left you–,’_ alone with her,_ he nearly said. ‘–by yourself like that. It must’ve sucked.’

‘It sort of did. A lot quieter though. Sometimes I could even hear my own thoughts.’ Eddie smiled, and there was something shy in it. A little heartbreaking. _Oh, just fucking stop, _thought Richie. _You’ve humiliated yourself enough. Just find a ditch and die in it already._

‘Okay, enough sad-times,’ said Richie, speaking around the ache in his throat. ‘Drink. You said there was drink. Where’s this fucking drink?’

‘One thing first.’

Richie watched Eddie twist the ring from his finger and toss it into the air. It described a perfect moonlit arc, landing a distance away in some limelight hydrangeas. Richie blinked the glare from his eyes.

‘Wow. You are definitely going to regret that in the morning.’

‘I definitely am.’

‘Fortunately you throw like a girl. You should be able to find it easy enough.’

‘I’ll find it easier with you helping me. Which you will, because it’s your fault.’

‘I opened my fucking heart to you tonight, douchebag. Have some fucking appreciation. Starting with this drink.’

‘That’s still in my room. Shall we go get it?’

Eddie always found the way.

***

‘_I have an idea.’_

_Bev’s voice is disembodied and strange, somehow older. She wades around the inner circle. Her luminous green hands are spread as though pulling on strings. Richie senses they are being drawn into her orbit. With something like relief, he lets himself be drawn._

‘_We’re coming apart, and we need to be brought back together. If we’re not together, we’ll never get out. I know how to do it. But you need to let go of each others’ hands.’_

_It is a mark of their trust that they do, submitting to her as the planets submit to the sun’s gravity. Leaping jags of light throw a circle of jumping throats and clenched teeth into dull relief. Beside Richie the faint wet sheen of Eddie’s eyes is visible. His gaze is riveted on Beverly. He doesn’t look so frightened now, and when she moves towards him he steps forward to meet her._

‘_We need to show that we love each other,’ she says. ‘That we are all friends.’ Then she puts her face down and kisses Eddie’s mouth._

_It’s a sisterly sort of kiss, yet Richie’s heart misses a beat. ‘I love you,’ she says, and he thinks Eddie mumbles it back. The kiss she gives Bill next is different; it lingers, and Richie supposes she shuts her eyes. When Beverly says ‘I love you’ to Bill it sounds as though she means it differently too. It occurs to Richie that there are a myriad colours of love tying each person in this tunnel to the other, each as distinct as the different types of birds are to Stan, yet called by the same four letters._

_Then, instead of continuing around the circle like Richie imagined she would, Beverly places a hand on Eddie and Bill’s necks, and brings their faces together. _ Show we love each other _, she had said, and although the dark makes it impossible to tell he knows that Eddie and Bill have kissed each other. _

_Beverly continues around the circle, kissing each of the boys then bringing their faces together. Richie is the last. ‘I love you, Trashmouth,’ she grins against his lips, and kisses him. It is Richie’s first kiss. ‘I love you too, Molly Ringwald,’ he replies, because it will make her laugh, and because it is true. He loves every one of the six other people in this tunnel, and he loves them in six different ways._

***

‘Do you remember how we got out of the sewer?’ Richie asked, watching Eddie mess with his door keys.

‘What?’ Eddie glanced up. ‘No-o. Not yet. Did something happen?’

You could say that. ‘You got us lost.’

‘That doesn’t sound like me. I’ve never been lost in my life.’

‘Nuh uh, you did. We could’ve died. You must’ve suppressed it because of the terrible shame.’

‘Whatever.’ Eddie shoved the door open and switched on the light.

‘Wow, they gave you a much tidier room than they gave me.’

‘I don’t want to think about the state of your room.’ Eddie glanced over his shoulder. ‘Shut the fucking door will you.’

‘Did you _disinfect? _It smells like a hospital in here.’

‘Jesus, Rich, of course I disinfected. You know I did. _And _I swapped the linen. _And _I checked for bed-bugs. The clown thing doesn’t make the other stuff go away.’

Richie felt his skin grow warm. They kept coming, these shocks of love. The first had been in the restaurant. It had kicked like a horse, with such incredible psychic force he’d nearly staggered. This was softer, but it hurt his heart. It always hurt a little. The salt in the meat.

‘I feel like I’m thirteen again,’ he said.

‘Me too. Everything’s very close to the surface.’

That was it. That sensation of stepping through time again. The feelings were old ones, but the way he was experiencing them was old also. He’d been on this planet forty years and had lived every day of it. He’d drank and smoked and fucked, lived on the bones of his ass for years at a stretch, upped sticks and moved to the opposite side of the country. He’d fallen in love a couple of times, and run from it a couple of times, also. Things that should have counted for something. But they may as well have never happened. He thought of chemistry class in high school, the soft metals that had gone dull with exposure, but which would gleam if cut with a knife.

‘There was supposed to be a drink?’

‘It’s over there somewhere.’ Eddie made a motion towards the sideboard.’ Help yourself. I’m going to take a shower.’

‘You’ve showered like eighteen times already.’

‘A leper threw up on me. Again. I’m never going to stop showering.’

Eddie went off to the bathroom. Richie listened to the sounds of him undressing, the tacky noises his bare feet made on the linoleum, the shower coming on. Turning the image over in his mind’s eye he moved over to the sideboard. It was covered in potions and unguents, carefully arranged. Nothing too serious; the real big-hitters would be in the bathroom. And there, next to an open packet of Clorox wipes and mystifying box of Midol, a bottle of Grey Goose.

‘Eddie, I forgot my glass.’ No answer. ‘Eddie, I’m gonna drink this straight from the bottle if you don’t answer.’ Still none.

Fine. He opened the bottle, then thought better of it. Why waste a perfectly good opportunity after all? He rapped the bathroom door.

‘Cover yourself, sweet princess, I’m coming in.’

‘Jesus, Richie.’ Eddie’s scowling face peeked from behind the wash curtain. ‘Could you not wait five whole minutes?’

‘Like you ever had a five minute shower in your life.’ He scooped up a toothglass, then examined the curtain. ‘Why, you got something to hide?’

‘Jesus. Make yourself useful and pass me that fucking towel, will you?’

The towel was thick, fluffy, and patently non-hotel issue. Richie passed it over. ‘You’ve got nothing to hide from me Eds. I’ve seen it all before.’ It was meant to be a joke, but he heard an edge he hadn’t intended. He sensed Eddie go still behind the curtain.

‘Sorry, Eddie. That was only meant to be a bit that creepy.’

‘That’s okay.’ Another pause. ‘Like, I guess you didn’t come up for a drink, did you? And I’m not showering because a leper threw up on me. Well. Not entirely.’

Richie’s tongue turned to rubber tubing in his mouth. The muscles in his groin knotted painfully.

‘I guess not.’ Then, because Eddie had been brave and Eddie’s bravery was infectious, ‘I hoped not.’

Eddie stepped out of the shower. Richie’s mouth got even drier. He would’ve liked a glass of vodka, but it was as though the bottle in his hand wasn’t there. He put it down. ‘Not bad, Kaspbrak. I mean, you’re no Ben Hanscom, but you’ll do.’

The lame little joke seemed to put Eddie at ease. He gave a quick, closed-mouth smile. ‘You’re going to have to move. I need to brush my teeth.’

‘Aw, your dogbreath never bothered me Eds.’ But he stepped away from the sink, grabbing the opportunity to covertly appraise Eddie from behind. It was a shame the towel was so plush; he couldn’t get nearly a good enough look as his ass. But it hung well off his hips, and the muscles of his lower back looked good too. His vertebrae didn’t protrude like they had when he was a kid, but cast just enough of a shadow that Richie felt both tender _and _horny at the same time.

‘You know I can see you right?’

Richie’s eyes met Eddie’s in the mirror. There were two bright, high spots of colour on Eddie’s cheekbones. It would be very easy, Richie thought, to just reach around and loosen the towel. To let it fall. _I wonder how well he cleaned?_ he wondered. _I bet if I ate his ass out it’d fucking squeak. _The image arrived like a bolt of lightning, Eddie bent over the sink whimpering, the bright high spots becoming higher, brighter. Richie wet his mouth. Too much of a risk; just as likely he’d run screaming about hepatitis A. Better to play it safe. Blowjob? Richie had never met a man who’d refuse a blowjob.

Eddie spat in the sink, startling Richie from his reverie. ‘Sorry about this,’ Eddie said, turning around. It look Richie a second to realise he was talking about the ablutions. ‘You know I… I do want….’ He trailed off, pink with embarrassment.

‘Don’t worry about it. Happens that guys decontaminating prior to sex with me really gets my engine running.’ There, it was out there now, he’d said the S-word. The G-word too, come to think of it. Before he could think of it any more his mouth ran on ahead. ‘Hey, you wanna make this really fun? I got a hazmat suit back in my room.’

‘Hazmat suits are for the uncontaminated,’ Eddie replied curtly, dabbing his mouth.

‘Bitch! You’ve definitely had your dick wet more recently than me, Mister Actually Married.’ Jesus, that was sad. Also, wow, was Eddie actually grimacing? Richie didn’t think he realised that he was doing it, but Eddie Kaspbrak was most definitely grimacing. Ha!

‘Perhaps. But, you know. Myra.’

Richie didn’t know, but he could imagine. Another image popped into his mind, less piquant than the last: dry kisses, Eddie’s little bottom pumping dutifully away, a weak splat of an ejaculation. He felt his face slide helplessly into a smirk.

‘Oh, god. Whatever you’re thinking don’t tell me.’

‘Seriously though, you want me to –?’ Richie gestured vaguely at the shower, the sink. _Wash my dick_, he mouthed, making idiotic speech marks with his fingers to bely the actual seriousness of what he was asking. Because if this was going to be a problem….

Eddie’s face had gone to war with itself. ‘No, that’s not – I mean, if you want? But it’s not necessary… although if you would?’

_If you would. _Of course Richie’ll do a cursory dick-wipe for you, Eds. More than cursory, if that’s what it took. _Jesus, look at him, _he thought_._ Look at this idiot who sterilised his own hotel room and disinfected before sex. The idiot he chose_. _He felt bemused, sick with the love he’d stepped back into just two days before. “If you would.”_ I’d fucking _die _for you, you fucking dipshit. _

‘Bet those other guys didn’t ask you to do this.’ Richie heard the hesitation on _guys. _Eddie was still getting used to the idea, was trying to match up this new information with the kid he’d known before. The kid who’d flapped his mouth about _chicks _and _pussy, _and who had once claimed that he’d got stuck inside a girl for a full hour because his dick was so huge. ‘Like dogs do,’ he’d said, knowing approximately as much about canine anatomy as he did human.

He also suspected that Eddie was half-fishing. That he was curious in spite of himself. _ Fuck you, dude, _ he thought, unbuttoning his shirt.  No way he was biting. Who’d want to listen to that litany of drunken horniness and instant regret anyway?  H e’d leave it to Eddie’s imagination. At least there he was probably somewhat self-assured and competent. Still, compared with what Eddie had been getting up until now….

_I’m going to blow your head off, baby, _ he thought, suddenly cheerful. Blow something, anyway. He  picked up a wash cloth  and started to whistle.

‘Are you actually – no, do you know what, stop.’ Eddie grabbed Richie’s hands. It was the first physical contact since he put his feet into Richie’s lap, and they both froze. Disappointment punched Richie in the gut. He’d known it was too good to be true. He took a step back.

‘Sorry, I didn’t –.’ Eddie let go of his hands. ‘I didn’t mean _stop, _I meant you don’t have to. You know. Sterilise.’

The little shit! Richie was actually shaking. He let go a breath.

‘I mean, if I’m gonna go through with this I may as well _taste _it, I guess.’

He loved the little shit,  and though it was Richie who stepped forward, it was Eddie who took his face into his hands and kissed him. It was clumsy, blurred by drink and twenty-seven years waiting. They both aimed for the bottom lip, which made things awkward. Eddie won, because he was little, and  then  they settled into something that was perhaps not very orderly but drew on a place inside of Richie that hadn’t been tapped since he was a child. It was all he could do not to sob into Eddie’s mouth.

Eddie’s body came up flush with his own. There was no mistaking the signs. Amongst everything else Richie was struck by the strangeness of it all. His feelings felt as bright as new knives, with a keenness he hadn’t experienced since adolescence. But the body that responded to them was that of a middle-aged man, and all the potential that entailed. It occurred to him that this might be the best of both. Or would be, were it not for his fucked back.

‘Eddie,’ he groaned, when Eddie eventually let him go. ‘Eddie, if someone’s dick doesn’t go into something very soon, I’m going to die.’

Eddie kissed him again anyway, pushing up harder against him. Richie gave his mouth a small bite. Because if the little shithead was just going to fuck about….

Richie dropped to his knees. He bashed them off the linoleum, but pretended he didn’t. Eddie’s tummy  came to eye level. It was lightly furred, and on either side ran lovely descending grooves that formed a V somewhere behind the towel. Sidestepping his own impatience, he pleased himself rubbing his face in Eddie’s abdomen. The taut muscles in Eddie’s  stomach bounce d . He edged his tongue out, sampling the clean taste of washed ski n, like an  _amuse-bouche_ before the main event. He applied his teeth,  to further the point.

‘Uh. Fucking hypocrisy much?’ The tremble in Eddie’s voice negated the dryness of his words. Richie let him feel his smile. If he’d had more self-control he’d draw this out longer, but he’d been waiting since the fucking nineteen-eighties. He figured that was drawn out enough, thank you very much.

‘Wait,’ said Eddie, staying Richie’s hand as it crept behind the towel. Richie did not groaned, nor did he succumb to the very tempting toddler-style tantrum right there on the bathroom floor. But it was a near thing. He felt Eddie’s fingers move behind his ear. In spite of himself he moved into them, submitting like some half-tamed thing.

‘Hey!’ In one deft motion Eddie had his glasses off his face. Richie squinted up at him. ‘The fuck dude?’

‘It’ll be better this way,’ replied Eddie. He didn’t sound certain. ‘Anyway, I always thought you looked nice without them. Sort of soft.’

Richie had thought the same. Soft, and exposed, and frightened too. He’d hated it. Even now, with Eddie calling him words like  _nice _ and  _soft,_ he felt simply vulnerable.

‘I can’t fucking see.’ He popped Eddie’s thumb into his mouth and slurped hard. ‘Am I sucking your dick right now? You like that, big boy?’

Eddie laughed. His laugh was different now than it had been when he was a kid. It was like he was surprised by it. Richie guessed he hadn’t had much to laugh at, which made Richie feel very soft indeed. He turned Eddie’s hand over and kissed the palm. He could feel the heat of Eddie’s gaze on the back of his neck. It made him feel naked, although he was the only one wearing any clothes. Not daring to look up he knelt forward instead, parting the towel and taking Eddie in his mouth.

It wasn’t anything he hadn’t done before, but it _felt _new. In the past when he’d done this, especially as he did it now – fully dressed, with a naked partner – it had given him an illusion of control. Security, even, or as close to it as could be expected. Only now did it occur to him that there was something of submission in the act. Perhaps even worship. It was his first religious thought in years and he wondered what Father Kelly, his childhood priest, would make of it.

What was also new was Eddie_. _Richie had given enough head to know he was at least somewhat good at it, but he’d always found it at best a bit boring, at worst sort of gross and sore-making. But _Eddie. _As a teenager Richie had worn grooves in his brain – and dick –imagining this very scenario. It gave the whole thing a weird sense of _déjà vu._ There was the way that Eddie flickered and mewled, the way he pushed his fingers through Richie’s hair. But in all his daydreams Richie had never imagined the gentle way Eddie would cup the back of his skull, or how he would stroke the softer curls of his neck. He’d never really understood how this could be an act of devotion as well as desire.

Eddie’s breathing turned harsh. With a jolt of apprehension that was almost innate Richie wondered if he needed his inhaler. Then he realised that Eddie was very close to coming. That was quick. With undisguised smugness, he shoved Eddie up against the sink. Pinning him with one hand and stroking with the other, he took him as far as he could. 

‘Ah, Rich.’ Eddie’s hand was gone from his neck and tugging at his shoulder. Richie, half-blind and stupid with lust, squinted up. Eddie tugged harder. ‘Please stop. If you don’t I’m gonna, um. I’m gonna go off.’

‘Sort of the point,’ grumbled Richie, allowing himself to be pulled. When they were at face-level Eddie kissed his smudged, raw mouth, for what seemed a long time. All the while his erection jabbed at Richie’s hip, as though chastising him. _It’s not my fault, _he thought crossly. _Blame him._

‘What was that about?’ he asked after a while. Eddie didn’t respond immediately, but pushed his face into the triangle of flesh between Richie’s shoulder and neck, mouthing the skin there. He’d stopped panting, but his breathing remained deep. Richie shivered.

‘It wasn’t “about” anything, I just didn’t want it to end that fast.’

‘That’s – it wouldn’t have had to end there.’ Eddie’s mouth had moved to his throat. He tilted his chin to allow him room. His thoughts came slow and stupid, but something about what Eddie said had disturbed him.

‘We don’t know how much time we have.’ Eddie placed a hand on Richie’s face, moving his head so he could kiss the outline of his ear. This had the strange effect of removing all the bones in Richie’s body, bar one. He moved to kiss Richie’s jaw, then the corner of his mouth. He was tender, because he didn’t want to be cruel. They _didn’t_ know how much time they had. Sadness dangled in front of Richie. He brushed it away. He could cry in his pillow later. Right now, all he wanted was to make Eddie feel as good as he had right to.

‘Come on. Bed. You’re short and my neck hurts. I wanna kiss you horizontally.’ He patted Eddie’s ass, noting with an almost propriety satisfaction the red mark that the sink had pressed into it.

‘I need to get something first.’

Richie had known that Eddie would keep all the good  shit in the bathroom, but even he was surprised when he pulled a tube of surgical lubricant and a foil ream of condoms out of the cabinet. ‘Uh, Eddie?’

‘What?’ The tips of Eddie’s ears had gone pink.

‘Uh, like, what the fuck? Why do you have the entire inventory for a chemsex party stuffed in your medicine cabinet?’

‘I like to be prepared.’ Eddie’s voice was prim, but the blush was halfway down his fucking neck.

‘Prepared for what, exactly? You thought there was an outside change we’d have to fuck the monster-clown to death?’ Richie gestured the rubbers with an almost hysterical glee. ‘_Safely?’_

‘Look, do you want to do this or not?’ Eddie looked as though he might actually die if Richie didn’t stop, which was probably a sign he should. But it was just too funny.

‘I mean, sure, if you don’t think it’ll affect our ability to fight Pennywise….’

‘Oh my god!’ Eddie flung up his hands. ‘Fine. _I’m _going to bed. If you’d like to come with me, you’re welcome, but if you’d rather stand in the bathroom laughing at your own jokes then please shut the door.’

‘Aw, Eds, don’t be mad.’ He pulled the smaller man toward himself. ‘I like your anal retentiveness, you weird, tiny perv.’

When Eddie kissed him this time there was teeth in it. Real annoyance, too. This delighted Richie, who hadn’t spent half his childhood winding the key in Eddie’s back because he didn’t like the result. When they came apart Eddie’s nostrils were flaring and his eyes were very black, like a naughty cat’s. Richie half-remembered the look. It was the look Eddie wore when committing himself to a course of action.

Eddie jabbed him in the chest. ‘Go, before you start talking again.’

‘If you hadn’t pulled your dick out of my mouth you wouldn’t have had to listen to any of that. Just saying.’

Eddie rolled his eyes so hard it was nearly audible. ‘Jesus, Rich. Do you never shut up?’

‘No! You know this. Knew it.’

‘Know it. Move.’ He jabbed again.

Richie had imagined himself on top of Eddie, had envisioned him anchored by his hips and wrists. So it came as something of a surprise to find himself under Eddie. His shirt had rucked right the way up, and he felt the value of good linen. Then Eddie ground their groins together and he stopped giving any flying fuck whatever about thread counts. Horizontally, Eddie kissed him. Richie made noises into his open mouth he wasn’t proud of.

‘Are you sure about this?’ He asked when he could manage it. ‘Like, for definite definite?’

‘Yes. For definite definite. I’ve made a decision. I think if I– that if I go ahead with this, it will make me see it through.’ Eddie kissed Richie deeply. ‘And I just want it.’

Richie didn’t know what to do with that. He did the only thing he could manage, and kissed Eddie back.

It was incredible how long they were content to kiss for. Eddie’s dick was literally grinding into Richie’s, yet neither of them made any effort to get Richie’s pants off. Perhaps it made sense on Eddie’s part: he’d finally found a guaranteed way of making Richie stop talking. But Richie found his own behaviour mystifying. Teenage Richie would have abhorred this sort of sexual filibustering. Actually, now that adult Richie came to think of it, teenage Richie would have creamed his panties about eight minutes ago and would’ve been sat in a cold, wet pool of his own shame. So there was that to be said for middle-age.

Whatever happened, Eddie would have stubble burn in the morning and would need a viable excuse to cover up for it. If they kept persisting at it like this, so would Richie. Usually that would have been enough to send Richie into a panic spiral; it was significant that it didn’t. You could say what you wanted about murderous eldritch clowns, but they did put things into perspective.

‘Fuck you, clown,’ said Richie out loud.

‘Excuse me?’

‘Don’t mind that, I always say it before sex.’ He was transfixed by Eddie’s mouth, which was wet and bruised and sulky-looking. His eyes were all pupil, his cheeks pink, the cut of his torso pin-neat and sharp. His hair was a fucking fright. Richie wanted to drag him downstairs, to show him to the others. _Look what I did to him! With kissing!! And a tiny bit of oral, maybe._

‘Right.’ Eddie fixed him with a critical look. ‘Speaking of which, you going to take your clothes off, or what?’

The urge to parade Eddie vanished as quickly as it arrived. After all, Richie looked no better. Perhaps worse. Maybe Eddie was looking at Richie and thinking, look what I did to him with just a bit of kissing. Look how desperate I’ve made him.

‘Can we have the lights off?’ asked Richie.

‘You afraid of being seen, Tozier?’ laughed Eddie. Richie clenched his teeth. Yes, he was afraid of being seen. Come the fuck on.

Eddie’s grin vanished. The worry-crease appeared between his eyebrows. He touched Richie’s face with the tips of his fingers, and when he kissed him it was different again, almost unbearably gentle. Richie, who’d never thought the point of his love was to have it reciprocated, felt for a moment how that would be.

‘Okay, if that’s what you want. But you’re being very unfair.’

Eddie’s voice was gentle, and a touch flirty. Richie relaxed. ‘This hot body is too good for you to experience in 4DX.’ He heaved himself onto his elbows to watch Eddie pad across the room, enjoying the movement of his calves, the muscular hollows in his ass. It was weird how Eddie conformed so perfectly with his type; but then, Eddie was the blueprint. He just forgot.

He felt a little sorry when the light went off.

It was like they had entered an adjacent world. Everything took on a surreal appearance. The enormous moon cast an eerie light through the blinds, adorning the place in silver ribbons, according it a dreamlike quality. When Eddie settled back into Richie’s lap he was striped like a tiger.

‘I’ve done what you wanted. Now let’s take a look at that dad bod.’

‘Who taught you that term? I know it wasn’t WebMD.’

‘It might have been your awful show actually.’ He tugged Richie’s shirt. ‘Come on, asshole. I showed you mine.’

It wasn’t that Richie was especially bothered by his appearanc e; i f he was, he’d  brush his hair once in a while. But there was an unavoidable vulnerability in being exposed like this. Now without his clothes as well as his glasses, he felt like a hermit crab between  homes . The feeling of exposure was  almost unbearable.  O f being looked at.  O f being  _known._

‘Not so bad, Trashmouth.’ Eddie’s hand stroked his stomach. It wasn’t an erotic touch, but there was an intimacy in it that was like the pain of a reopened wound. Richie almost stopped Eddie’s hand. But he wanted him to carry on, too.

‘This what you’re into?’ he rasped out, when he could speak. ‘”Dad bod”.’

‘I don’t know what I’m into. I’ve never let myself think about it. I know I like you.’

That was a lot for Richie to think about. He was glad when Eddie pushed him back against the mattress so that he didn’t have to. Static fizzed across his skin when Eddie parted his legs and crouched down between them. Movement made the stripes ripple over Eddie’s skin. He kissed the inside of Richie’s knee, where the skin was tender, making him shiver. Then there was the snap of a bottle cap, and Richie shivered again.

The fingers that touched Richie were cold, slick, and uncertain. Richie  wanted to cry with frustration. ‘Eddie, please!’  he moaned. ‘Give a guy a break. It’s been  _twenty-seven years!_ ’

That was all it took.  Eddie’s fingers entered him, and with that any sense of hesitation vanished. Richie’s hips snapped hard against the bed; he felt as though he’d been electrocuted. Eddie,  it turned out, had a hand like a heat-guided missile. ‘Fuck, Eddie,’ he gasped, astonished. ‘I thought you’d never done this before. Where’d you learn to do  _that?_ ’

‘I didn’t learn to do it anywhere. I’ve just got an imagination and an amateur expertise in human anatomy.’

‘Oh my god.’ Richie knew he shouldn’t say it but he’d no control at the best of times, and this was not that. ‘You perform your own prostate examinations.’

Eddie’s silence was thunderous. Richie would have given him hell at this point, but he’d been reduced to his base parts. Higher function was impossible.

‘So why me?’ asked Eddie.

‘Can’t talk. Lizard brain.’

‘Come on. I want to know.’

Eddie  began to stroke  Richie’s dick with his free hand.  He was very gentle , and  that was lovely,  but frustrating too.  Probably for the best though. I f Eddie touched him more firmly  Richie thought he might blow himself through the bed frame. 

‘Because you’re awesome at fingering,’ he said. He lifted his head. Eddie’s face was dipped in shadow, his shoulders edged in silver light. ‘And you’re fucking jacked.’

‘You said you liked me when we were kids. Did you like me like this?’

‘Yes.’ He pressed into Eddie’s fingers. ‘Something like it anyway. I don’t think I imagined this exactly.’

‘Why?’ asked Eddie. ‘Why not Bill, or Mike?’

‘Eddie. You are up to the knuckles in my ass. Is now really the time to be suggesting superior alternatives?’

Eddie didn’t rise to that. Moonlight slid across his face. His expression was sweetly grave. Richie sighed.

‘Fine.’ He reached over to touch Eddie’s hair. It was still damp from the shower. ‘I guess I liked you because you put up with me.’

‘Bullshit,’ said Eddie, turning his face to nuzzle Richie’s hand.

‘You did! I mean, I worked very, very hard to prove otherwise, but you always came through. You gave me hell. I appreciated that. You let me be more me than I could with anyone else. And I guess….’ His stomach coiled in on itself. ‘I guess I felt like I did that for you too.’

Eddie’s hands stopped moving. His face had shifted back into shadow.

‘You did.’

Richie’s heart flipped. ‘That’s cool. You were a little shithead but you had no outlet. I felt like I got to be your outlet.’

‘You were.’

‘Good. I really liked you. Like, I loved you. And I guess I just wanted to spend my life finding out just how far I could push you.’

There was a long pause. ‘That’s actually the most romantic thing anyone’s ever said to me.’ Eddie said. His voice was heavy.

‘Jesus. That’s sad.’

‘It really is.’ Eddie kissed his knuckles.

‘Also I really liked your little booty shorts.’

‘Fuck you.’

‘_Yes. _Less feelings, more fucking!’

Eddie removed his fingers. Richie felt hollowed out, oddly bereft. He bumped up onto his elbows.

‘Eddie?’

‘I’m cleaning my hands,’ said Eddie, and Richie smelt the hand sanitizer he’d summoned from – where? ‘Then – you said more fucking. So I guess I’m going to fuck you.’

If Richie’s insides had been all over before now they pretty much vacated the premises. Richie had just assumed, even at this point with the evidence kind of pointing the other way, that he’d be fucking Eddie. That was how it’d been most of the other times with the dark, bossy little twinks he’d spent half his life being inexplicably attracted to. But there it was. Richie was getting railed tonight. He wanted to scream into his pillow like a teenage girl. 

‘That sounds good. Like, if you did that, I might not regret putting all my adolescent sexual energy into you instead of Mike or Bill.’

‘Shut up.’

‘_You _suggested it. Hell, if I’d known how Ben was gonna turn out, I might have invested.’

‘Oh my god.’

Eddie  _sounded _ exasperated, but he was also  pouring lube into his open palm . Richie squinted.

‘Uh, Eddie. Not to go all health class on you but you’re supposed to grease it _after _you put the rubber on.’

Under bars of moonlight Eddie’s cheek darkened. ‘I’ve, um, kind of made a decision. If you’re cool with it.’

Richie’s mouth turned dry again. It wasn’t lizard brain he had now, it wasn’t even Cambrian explosion. He was just a dick strung up to a nervous system. Somehow, that nervous system found the capacity to nod.

‘I know it’s stupid. But I think I need to do this for myself. But only if you’re okay with it.’

‘I’m fine. I mean, I’m fine with it, but I’m also… fine. Like, healthy.’

Richie’s teeth tilted beneath the impact of Eddie’s next kiss. The mattress springs creaked. He shoved his hand between their bodies and had a hold of them both, getting in a few good tugs before Eddie reared up onto his knees again. He gave Richie a pat on the hip that came little short of a spank.

‘I can’t wait any longer.’

Richie made to roll onto his stomach but Eddie pushed him back. ‘I can see little enough of you as it is,’ he grumbled, kissing him. Richie vibrated with – what? Desperation? Fear? Those things, but somehow not awful. Somewhere between getting undressed and now, his dread of being seen had changed character. Perhaps it had been when he told Eddie he made him more himself than he was with anyone. Or when he confessed he’d loved him. That somehow, by owning up to his vulnerability, he’d reduced it, or transformed it.

‘I love you,’ said Richie. You weren’t supposed to say that when someone was pushing into you. He didn’t care. The fact was he didn’t think he’d ever loved Eddie more than he did right at that moment, and for the first time in his life he felt he could say it out loud. Eddie’s dick in his ass was immaterial. Sort of. ‘I never stopped.’

‘I know.’

‘The fuck.’ Eddie shifted his weight in a way that made Richie struggle to get the next bit out. ‘I declare my continuing devotion and you give me that Star Wars bullshit?’

‘Richie, sweetheart. We can talk about this later or we can talk about it now, but I cannot do everything at once.’

And Richie shut up, because Eddie called him  _sweetheart_ .

They found an angle that made Richie’s toes curl. Rocking in slow-time together, Richie craned his neck to kiss Eddie’s mouth. Eddie’s hand slipped in to support the back of his head; the other he used to lift Richie’s ass. In this semi-embrace they gathered speed. The springs began to groan. After a while they began to scream. The headboard knocked a tattoo into the wall. Their breaths came thick and fast, and were muffled in each others’ mouths. Eddie made soft crying sounds which he buried in Richie’s shoulder. When he lifted his face again he left behind the sting of his teeth in Richie’s collarbone. Richie’s cock scrubbed the hair and wet between their stomachs. He wished Eddie would touch him, but then he would have had to stop holding him. Untouched or otherwise, he was fast approaching the type of bone-shattering orgasm his body hadn’t known it was capable of.

The knock on the door came as a surprise.

Eddie reversed so fast he fell off the bed. Richie ran into the bathroom. There was an ominous silence from the hallway.

‘Uh, Eddie? Are you okay in there?’ It was Ben.

‘Great!’ yelped back Eddie, in the exuberant tones of a depressed children’s TV presenter. ‘I just hit my leg off the bedframe. Whoops!’

‘It sounded like you fell off the bed,’ said Ben. Even through the door his tone was dubious.

‘It was a bit of both.’ Eddie motioned frantically to Richie for his clothes. It did no good; the sweatpants could only hide so much.

‘Is Richie in there with you? He’s not in his room.’

‘Ye-ah.’ Eddie turned his face to Richie, teeth bared in a rictus. ‘He needed to use the shower. His shower stopped working.’

‘Right. Well, when you’re both ready –,’ (Was it Richie’s imagination, or was there a distinct emphasis on the _ready _there?) ‘– We’re all sort of waiting for you to come back. No pressure though.’

They listened to the sound of Ben’s footsteps receding down the corridor. Once they’d died away, Eddie switched on the lights. Richie located his glasses and jammed them on his face.

‘Okay. Do we think he heard anything?’ Eddie’s face was still fixed in that horrible grin.

‘We were being crazy loud. He definitely heard something.’ Richie put his face in his hands. ‘Fuck. We’re going to have to kill him. Like, he’s the nicest guy in the world, but he’s got to die.’

‘He won’t tell anyone.’

He wouldn’t, but that wasn’t the point. ‘Why does everything turn to shit?’ Richie moaned into his hands.

‘It isn’t shit.’

Richie looked up. The rictus grin was gone, and though he was still flushed and wild-haired, Eddie looked serious.

‘It isn’t shit,’ he said again. He moved across the room and took Richie in his arms.

Richie, still naked and raw with arousal, had never been held like this. He hadn’t allowed it. But Eddie had good strong arms and he hugged surprisingly well. He felt warm and comfy in his soft clothes. His head fit neatly under Richie’s chin. Richie hung onto him, like Rose on that big bit of wood after the Titanic went down.

‘We used to do this when we were kids, didn’t we?’ Eddie’s voice was muffled.

‘There were one or two differences.’ Richie jabbed his hips to illustrate the point. Then he kissed the top of Eddie’s head. There were individual strands of silver hair in Eddie’s temple. His heart ached.

‘We could pick up where we left off, if you wanted.’

‘It kills me to say it, but no,’ said Richie, feeling like the words were being ripped out of him. ‘I think they actually need us down there, and we came here for a reason.’

Eddie tilted his face. Richie dropped a kiss onto his upturned mouth. It was sweet and rather chaste, but when they broke away Richie saw that Eddie was frowning.

‘Eddie?’

‘I remember how we got out of the sewer.’

***

_Richie loves them in six different ways._

_He’s glad that it is Mike that comes to him first because he knows Mike the least. He is still partly a stranger, if any of them who have gone through this thing can be called strangers. Mike’s parents had loved him with a great, physical love; and when Mike kisses Richie it is with the kisses of his parents. It is oddly comforting. And that is Richie’s first kiss from a boy._

_Ben’s kiss is hot and moist. He is shaking very badly. He has just been kissed by Beverly, and his mouth is bruised with secret love._

_Stanley’s kiss is cold, like a fish. He is still hurting from when they lost him. Richie loves Stan deeply, and he tries to put all that love into his kiss. Tries to breathe it into Stanley’s body, like resuscitation._

_Richie hesitates before he kisses Bill. When Bill had hit him he had bitten the inside of his cheek, and the taste-memory fills his mouth like smashed berries. But it is the taste of brother-blood also, of those who go to war together. If forgiveness were still needed, this bloodstained kiss would seal it._

_And then there is Eddie. _

_Richie knows now that, down here at least, it is not possible to kiss somebody and keep secrets also. If he kisses Eddie, Eddie will know the flavour of Richie’s love. Eddie will see him. _

_He could make a joke out of it. That would be the usual course of action. But Eddie’s breath whistles from the aperture of his throat. He is cold, and in pain, and frightened. Worse, he is lost. So Richie, who has drawn on the well of his courage already today, does the bravest thing he’s ever done. He kisses Eddie. In the sewer half-light, he lets himself be seen._

_And Eddie kisses him back. And he sees Eddie._

***

‘We all kissed each other.’

‘Yeah, it was a regular orgy.’ It was a gross thing to say, and Richie didn’t know why he said it. He pulled Eddie back into his chest.

‘We all kissed each other, and you kissed me.’

Richie felt conscious of the fact that his heart was racing, and that Eddie could probably hear it. ‘Bev thought… Bev thought that the bonds between us were breaking, or something. She thought if we showed that we loved each other, it would bring us back together.’

‘But what did that have to do with us being lost?’

Richie had never understood it either, except that on some instinctual level he’d known that it would work. There’d been something else in the sewer that day. Something outside of themselves, outside of It… but there a cloud fell across his mind. _Too much, too soon_. It was like a kind hand in the small of his back, gently guiding him away from a door he could not yet enter.

‘You were our compass. But you were so scared and in pain, it was like you’d been damaged.’ Richie was bewildered to find his voice shaking. ‘I was so worried. About you. I thought… Bev’s idea….’

‘You loved me.’

Richie snorted into Eddie’s damp hair. ‘I think I might have mentioned that once or twice in the past hour, yeah. Pay some fucking attention, Eds.’

‘No, I mean that’s when I knew. In the sewer. When you kissed me.’

Richie squeezed Eddie hard enough to hurt. But if it hurt, Eddie didn’t seem to notice.

‘I couldn’t hide it.’ It was nearly a sob, of anguish or relief he didn’t know. ‘You needed it.’

‘Yes. You kissed me, and I knew you loved me. And I realised I loved you too.’

A sense memory tugged Richie’s fingers. He recalled the sensation of being drawn to a place, the way homing pigeons are guided irresistibly across the earth. He remembered old wood bristling in his palms. A hugeness of feeling, and shapeless defiance. A knife. The memory wouldn’t come home to roost, but he found himself tracing letters in the soft skin of Eddie’s back.

‘Rich?’

‘I knew.’ Richie crushed his face in the good-smelling place above Eddie’s ear. ‘But nothing ever came of it. Remember? It was so fucking hard, and miserable. But if someone had given me a knife and said, you can cut it out with that, I couldn’t have done it. _Wouldn’t _have.’

‘I loved you,’ said Eddie. His voice was surprised, and full of warmth. ‘I _love _you. I forgot. I’m so sorry.’

Richie kissed him with all the force of his denied love. Eddie more than met him.

‘What a fucking waste,’ said Richie, between kisses, between elation and despair.

‘Does it have to stay that way?’ asked Eddie. He sounded as though he was talking to himself. Richie thought of the ring in the hydrangeas. ‘Because I don’t think I could stand forgetting it again.’

It was a good question, but it was a question for After. If there was going to be an After. For now, Richie found it in himself to be content with the warm body in his arms. He  embraced it . A fist came up, grabbed his hair,  and pulled him down for another kiss. In his mouth  a taste of salt .

***

_Richie pulls away first. His mouth feels strange, tingly, like the first time he swam in the ocean. His heart beats so hard he thinks the others might hear it. Eddie grips his arm painfully tight with his good hand._

‘_I think when we went right two turns back we should’ve gone left. Jesus, I knew that, but I was so fucked up.’ The whistle in Eddie’s chest has gone; his voice is cool and sure. Only Richie can feel the pulse in his wrist. Only Richie knows how his heart goes._

‘_Been fucked up your whole life, Eds,’ Richie says. The others make noises of appreciation and relief. He untangles Eddie’s fingers. Then, in the secret dark, he puts their hands together. _

_The Losers form a clumsy line. Eddie is first. If Bill notices that his place in the second spot has been usurped he does not mention it. _ We’re going home,  _thinks Richie, and doesn’t know why he shivers. He squeezes Eddie’s hand. Eddie squeezes back. _

_As they move through the dark, he realises the sound of running water is closer._


End file.
